Swedish Brass Band Festival Gala Concert

Black Dyke Band
Conductor: Dr Nicholas Childs
Saturday 8th November

By 7.45 pm, the venue for the Gala Concert of the Swedish Brass Band Festival, given by the newly crowned British National Champions, Black Dyke, was already packed to its 1100 capacity. 

Sparkling

The band started with their composer-in-residence, Paul Lovatt-Cooper’s ‘Walking with Heroes’. Very much in the style of John Williams, this sparkling opener gave all the cornets, led superbly by Richard Marshall chance to show that everyone of them could be a soloist in their own right.

‘Capriccio Espanola’ (Rimsky-Korsakov) followed with significant contributions from John French on euphonium and very sensible playing from Paul Duffy on soprano. Neither too loud nor too quiet, and saving his very best top register for when it mattered, this young man is already a star – and showed it throughout the concert.

Witty

With witty and thoughtful compéring, Nicholas Childs introduced the first soloist of the evening, Richard Marshall, who presented ‘Willow Echoes’. Richard’s playing just gets better and better, but it was his band playing that impressed most on Saturday. He is certainly not a principal to sit back and let the others do the work, only to take all the praise for solo work.

‘Cats Tales’ by Peter Graham followed, with some lovely lyrical playing from Alex Kerwin on flugel and some remarkable tambourine playing from Lee Skipsy.

Black Dyke finished the first half of their concert with a flawless performance of that classic ‘Le Corsair’ taken at breakneck speed.

Autographs

During the interval, Black Dyke players signed CDs and made themselves available for the very appreciative audience to chat and share banding experiences.

The second half kicked off with a massed performance of all the competitors in the “mini-brass” division, wearing ‘I played with Black Dyke’ T-shirts. The introduction of the second half finished with the members of Black Dyke joining the youth bands on stager in ‘Ode to Joy’, conducted by Karin Lindk. Whilst the ‘mini’ brass players returned to their seats, the Swedish compére joked that at last Black Dyke had been conducted by a woman!

Popular

Widor’s ever popular ‘Toccata’ was featured next, showing off the excellent bass section in all their depth of sound and power. Matthew Routley’s pedaling was well judged and as accurate as ever.

Nicholas Childs, on presenting the ‘Soloists Showcase’, mentioned how important the band felt it was to win back the coveted National Champions title a few weeks earlier. His hunger for success is comparable to Alex Ferguson’s it seems.

One of the best

The first of the three soloists of the second half was David Thornton in ‘Neath Dublin Skies’. David’s sound, range, pyrotechnics and clarity at speed was simply astonishing. Nicholas Childs agreed by concluding he is “...one of the best in the world”. Coming from a past master obviously meant a lot to David.

Brett Baker then gave us ‘Sambezi’ – played almost entirely on his knees right at the front row of the audience who experienced his power up close!

The last of the evening’s soloists was Joseph Cook who chose to play ‘Czardas’, with the arranger, Steve Sykes, in the audience.

Joseph’s playful nature was brought to the fore during the cadenzas, and at its conclusion, Nicholas Childs giving special praise (albeit in a backhanded way!). Interestingly afterwards, several of the Swedish tuba players commented on the difference in sound between their forward facing rotary valved tubas and the more traditionally British bass sound.

Scintillating

To finish the concert, Paul Lovett Cooper again featured with his ‘Vitae Aternum’, and such a scintillating concert deserved a scintillating finale as this.

Egged on by Nicholas Childs, the audience demanded an encore, and after a standing ovation, they got two! ‘Lucerne Song’, again playing on Joseph Cook’s comical genius, and the overture from Rossini’s ‘William Tell’ rounded off an evening of great entertainment.

‘The Dyke’ really were on top form and are in good shape going into the Christmas season.

Nicholas Garman

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